Are You On Course, or Is It Time to Tack?

One thing I’ve learned in 40+ years of working for myself is that no matter what you’re doing or where you’re going, the time comes when it’s necessary to change direction in order to keep moving forward.

If this seems counter-intuitive, think about how you sail a boat from one island to another.

You don’t doggedly stay on the same course when the wind just isn’t there…

You don’t just bake in the blistering sun while hoping for a breeze that will move you in the right direction.

You have to tack to FIND the wind so you can use it to take you where you want to do go.

5 signs that it’s time—or past time—to tack

1) You’re not getting energy from the practice you used to love, or you’ve never been able to find enough clients to feel the energy in the first place.

Not having enough clients, challenge or opportunity to use your unique skill set.

These are just a few of the reasons you might be experiencing a lack of energy, but the bottom line is that you’re just not getting known, seen and honored for your work enough to feel good about what you’re doing.

And that makes it hard to keep going.

2) What your clients want from you isn’t aligned with what you want to give them.

This most often happens for practitioners when clients are looking for someone to “fix” them and you’re really clear that your work is about transformation

Maybe you realize that what you’re doing with clients is about your modality, rather than about you and the specific, unique gifts you’re here to bring to the people who most need you.

In the long run, it’s about being seen, accepted and appreciated for who you are and for the unique gifts you bring.

3) You’re not making enough money to live the way you want to.

You could feel a serious lack of motivation around marketing. You might think that you’ve done everything you know without getting the results you need.

You might be struggling with the money part from the first beat, because in your heart, you know that’s not why you do the work you do… and yet, you still have to pay your bills.

You might feel vulnerable because not having enough income often gets translated inside ourselves as not being good enough.

However this is showing up for you, whatever you’re doing to “make it happen” isn’t working and you don’t know what to do next.

4) Something has changed in your own life since you began practicing, and you haven’t figured out what it means for your work.

It could be that something has shifted in your family situation, your health has suffered a blow, or your financial needs have changed.

It could be that other work you’ve done on yourself has brought you to a new awareness and you don’t know how to incorporate it into your work.

It could be that you’ve reached a time in your life when you realize that you’re here for a reason and you’re either not clear about what it is and how to accomplish it, or you know what it is, and you don’t see how to make a living with it. Either way, it could feel like there’s no place for you among your colleagues, so you feel really isolated…. maybe even adrift.

5) In your heart of hearts, you secretly yearn for something more.

You feel “flat,” maybe even bored.

You used to know where you were going, and now you aren’t sure.

It feels like your motivation now is just about the money—because you just don’t have enough— and it never used to be like that for you.

You know this can’t be all there is to your practice, but you don’t know how to get the practice you crave because it isn’t like anything you’ve seen anywhere else.

The need to tack is real

People grow and change, so if you are struggling, my guess is that you see yourself somewhere in what I’m talking about here.

And there are feelings that accompany the need to tack… usually not so pleasant.

Maybe you have a vague feeling that something should change, needs to change—but you don’t know what it is or how to do it.

That stirs up fear, anxiety, confusion and overwhelm.

You may be afraid of losing the clients you have if you change something… especially your fees.

Or if you start talking about what’s really important to you. That can feel really diminishing and unsafe.

You may have an internal “Perfection Procrastinator” whose job it is to protect you from embarrassment and humiliation.Great, except it holds you back from putting anything out into the world that you are not absolutely sure is totally, completely, finally DONE and 100% free of any mistake, no matter how tiny. And that means that you might never allow what’s really important to you out in the open where the people who need it most (and care the least about tiny flaws) can see it.

You may think you’ll be judged by colleagues as a failure or “not good enough” or “not one of us” if you do something that didn’t occur to them first.

Next thing you know, nothing happens.

You might sit down to write a blog post, but it stalls. The post is half-written, or maybe even completed, but you can’t publish it.

You’re offering something new and trying to create a flyer or a web page for it. Everything is fine until you realize that your heart isn’t in it.

You think about getting help, but that makes you feel sick at the thought that any help that will make a difference is going to require money you may not have.

Then you realize that you feel sick when you think about things staying as they are.

All of these can underlie the need to change course.

“I felt better as soon as I decided to work with you.”

That’s what a new client recently told me, and it’s what I hear from most practitioners who are struggling to change their practice.

Like most practitioners, she’d been trying to figure it out on her own, without getting the results that made her feel visible to and valued by the clients she most wants to help.

Ironically, this is actually a pitfall that comes from overusing her natural strength of being a lifelong learner! You probably proudly acknowledge that about yourself and in general, it’s a great trait to have. It means your clients are always going to get the best from you.

But when it makes you think that you should be able to figure out how to get a practice without help, it’s a disservice to you and to your clients both.

Why do you need my help?

—>Because on your own, you won’t pay attention to the skill set required to change your practice.

You’re certainly smart enough to learn it, but because you aren’t focused on it, you can’t change what you’re currently doing that isn’t working.

Trying to acquire those skills without guidance from a coach like me, who has years of shepherding practitioners to the practice they want, actually delays your ability to change course. You’re likely to get lost learning my job when what you need to do is learn specifically what’s needed to shift your practice in a way that will make you happier!

—>Because working with me puts us in a partnership to reinvent your practice.

The trainings I’ve created are specifically for hands-on practitioners like you. That means you’ll feel right at home as you gain the skills you need to attract and enroll the clients who are right for you. The words I use will make sense, and the assignments will fit who you are.

My clients often increase their client base from the get-go, and often find that within a few months, they are enrolling most of the people they see for the first time.

It’s not unusual to hear practitioners in our online community celebrating that they have more referrals, or that they understand how to encourage old clients they love to come again for sessions.

Around tax time, we often hear from folks who just realized they’ve doubled or tripled their income, sometimes without working much more than they used to do, and always with more energy and enthusiasm than they had before.

And best of all, people stop fighting with the harsh inner voices that used to plague them. When you make friends with the voices that never leave you, you find new support inside yourself.

—>Because no other coach can match my ability to help hands-on practitioners

Business coaches don’t have decades of hands-on experience. They haven’t taught in practitioner training programs and they tend to lump your modality together with all the others that rely on touch. They do think they can help you, but they really don’t understand who you are, what makes you different from other program participants or why their templates don’t meet your needs.

Hands-on practitioners and trainers don’t have the business training or the years I’ve spent mentoring people like you in this way. They don’t have the benefit of the research I’ve done on practitioners that allows me to quickly and accurately identify the natural skills you have to make business easy for you. They aren’t focused on creating business—in fact, most of them find it hard even to sit in business seminars because they are so different from their own training world. Practitioner trainings are focused on how to help your clients—not on how to get your clients.

My mother always told me “It’s not bragging if it’s just the truth,” so I’m just going to say it: you simply won’t find a coach on the planet with the wealth of skills I’ve got to help you.

Are we a fit?

If you’re ready to stop floundering without guidance, and don’t want to reinvent the wheel, it might be time to have a talk with me! Request a free call with me to find out if working together might be a good idea, if you see yourself here:

You are a practitioner who wants something more than what you have now.

You feel the inner agitation that tells you there’s something more to your work than what you’re doing, and you need to know what it is and how to turn it into right livelihood.

You’re a student who wants a full practice on graduation and who is not afraid to make it happen.

In addition:

You are coach-able and willing to put in work to get what you want.

You believe in yourself enough to make an investment in yourself to get what you want.

If that’s you, click below to request an appointment with me. We’ll sort out what you want and what’s stopping you from getting it, and I’ll give you the best recommendation for your situation.

I won’t pressure you to work with me, but if we’re a fit, and I make a recommendation, I’ll expect that you’ll to consider it seriously.

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I blog so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. To get all my posts and tips, and find out about opportunities to for lifelong learning that makes a difference to your practice, subscribe to my list by entering your name and email address below.